VirPed Panel: 21 October 2024

Curious asker

For those of you (specifically non-exclusive) who are in a relationship with an adult and your partner knows about your attraction to kids, what was the process of telling them like? Did it take them a while to come around to the idea? Has it negatively affected your relationship?

I came out to my now-fiancé about two weeks into our relationship, we’re now just over five years together. After the first few dates and numerous calls i had a feeling he could be the one, and decided to get “it” out in the open sooner rather than later. Told him one night and to my surprise i woke up next to him the next morning. We didnt really talk about it for like a year, had a couple small chats here and there but he kinda pushed it to the back of his mind for the most part.

Year later we finally have a sit-down and proper talk about it all and he started to understand a bit better. He’s still made some misconceptions and whatnot since then but is quick to correct himself after i say something. He never really asks about it himself, but will sometimes ask questions if the topic comes up otherwise. I feel it’s only made our relationship stronger, both of us knowing each other to the fullest, a true understanding of the person you’re sharing your life with.

I was married for 15 years and have been divorced for 25 years. I’m also the rare pedophile who didn’t realize it until later in life, roughly 10 years after the divorce. My ex-wife noted during our marriage that I would get all emotional when some 12-year-old girl showed up in a movie, likely someone just on the cusp of puberty. I think we both just thought of it as a quirk. We have joint children and have been co-parenting fine (“As long as you’re wed, your wife is your wife, but your ex is your ex for the rest of your life.”) It has never occurred to me to bring up the issue with her. I have occasionally thought of bringing it up with our now-adult daughters but have decided not to. It would complicate their lives, give them a secret to keep, and however much they trusted me still complicate thinking about how I relate to grandchildren.

Later I had one other 9-year relationship. It was about 5 years into it that I had my realization that I was really a pedophile. My girlfriend was physically abused during her marriage, leaving her with challenges and mistrustful, so it was always a sort of problematic relationship with some distance to it. Even after 9 years, the pattern was that we always spent the night in our separate apartments across town from each other, following visits in the evenings 2 or 3 times a week. She seemed to have dissociative identity disorder or something very like it. One of those identities, the one that came out when relating to men, was her child-self, which was a key thing in making her appealing to me. She knew I had been volunteering with kids especially in the ages of 2 to 6 for some years, largely as part of our liberal (UU) church. That is something a pedophile is more likely to do than someone else. Perhaps it was just her fear that made her assume the worst about me, or perhaps she saw something in my interactions that gave away my attraction, or both. It’s no surprise I never dreamt of telling her about it, given the background of problematic communication and trust. Both before and after my realization, our joint lives did not include any time with children, so there were not even any appearance-of-impropriety questions after I knew.

I ended things after 9 years because I was just emotionally drained from so much work trying to make things work. That was 11 years ago, and I have never dated since and doubt I ever will. It certainly doesn’t help that I never feel any real spark of attraction to any woman within 30 years of my age.

When my boyfriend and I were first interested in each other, I was hesitant to move forward with the relationship. I didn’t want to date someone who didn’t know. One night, I decided that if he was worth dating he would be able to handle the news (and if he wasn’t, this would get me out of the relationship before it progressed too far) and I just… dropped it on him. Then I told him his car keys were by the door and I wouldn’t blame him if he took them and got in his car and never talked to me again.

But he said: “I decided awhile ago that I just want to be a good thing in your life. I’m not going anywhere."

And he hasn’t. It hasn’t been hard on the relationship. If anything it’s made our relationship stronger because I don’t have to hide any part of myself from him.

I have known of my attractions since I was a young teenager, and like most of us, have learned to live through the years hiding that part of me from everyone. Having relationships has never changed that automatic survival instinct, and even having a long-term relationship has not been enough reason to change it.

I see no benefit in coming out to anyone, at least not enough to outweigh the potential fallout of being known as a pedophile.

Others can argue the benefit of being completely open and honest with someone, or their right to know. But I’ll leave that to them.

I have a fulfilling relationship and a loving family. And God-willing I will take this secret to my grave.

I know the question specifies non-exclusives, but it’s possible for exclusives to be in adult relationships, albeit probably not as common as non-exclusives. My particular case of my partner knowing about my attractions is quite rare, but I think it’s worth mentioning anyway. My partner is another pedophile, and we first met on VirPed and started out as friends, so we both knew about our attractions long before getting into a relationship together. Over time, we got emotionally close, and when we met up in real life for the first time, I learned that it is in fact possible for me to enjoy intimacy with another adult, something I had ruled out as never happening.

Something about the emotional connection makes the intimacy a lot easier: neither of us have anything to hide, and we can both be open about our feelings and fantasies, exchanging them while being intimate together. He has a similar age and gender attraction to children as I do, so we can relate quite strongly on that front. There’s something about being fully open with another pedophile sitting right next to you that feels incredibly fulfilling, something that can’t compare with being in a relationship with a teleiophile. I would either have to hide this part of myself, or hope that they don’t freak out or get uncomfortable with me, which is unfortunately quite likely. With my partner, not only do I not need to fear judgement for talking about my attractions, but I have someone who I can indulge and let loose around, and he can do the same with me.

My situation is far from common and sadly not that likely for a lot of us. It’s quite a fluke that it happened at all for me. I feel incredibly grateful for it, as not only have I learned that an intimate, enjoyable and fulfilling adult relationship is indeed possible for an exclusive pedophile, but I don’t have to worry about hiding anything or feeling awkward when I talk about my feelings. I’m with someone who not only accepts me, but fundamentally relates to me, and I think that would be almost impossible to find in a relationship with a non-pedophile.

I came out to my ex-wife near the end of the marriage. I was ready to end it, and felt as though I owed her an explanation as to why things maybe felt sexually disconnected, given that I was never sexually attracted to her. She initially thought it was POCD, but after much insistence, she came around to the idea that I am a pedophile. This horrified and traumatized her in significant ways, and we were both left worse off for the experience. If I had listened to my intuition, I would have realized this was a terrible move, but i was giving her what I would have wanted in her situation: honesty. She openly told me that she would have preferred delusion.

If I were in a long term relationship again, I would not tell her unless my gut told me it was safe after a certain period of time, and then if I did, I would be very cautious in how I brought it up. It might be something I never bring up, and that would be OK to me. It’s a very heavy burden to lay upon someone.

I’ve been in more than one relationship where I concealed it till the end, including one where the other guy came out to me as a pedophile and I didn’t feel able to reciprocate.

Just once have I tried coming out as it was really getting going.

I had by this time come out to some other friends, so I had started to develop a drill: testing the water a bit beforehand without being too obvious, then deciding when was a suitable moment to say it.

In this case I dropped the hints too heavily and it happened over text chat instead of in person as I’d intended. The next time we met, on neutral ground, we sat in a city park and I told him the entire story of my attraction and what I had and hadn’t done about it. All the details, without being gross. I wasn’t overly emotional, which I think helped.

He had questions but indicated he was good to continue the relationship, which was a relief.

I did have to reassure him about how non-offending I am and planned to remain. I think he also needed to hear that he wasn’t a compromise for me in terms of attraction, that he wasn’t just an inadequate substitute for a young boy, which he wasn’t.

For a while I was able to talk about my attraction with him and he did listen, but the subject continued to stir discomfort for him.

Some partners don’t like to show too much interest, because they have some moral unease about pedophilia and they fear getting too complicit, or too drawn in to what might feel like a shady world. It felt like this to me.

So we ended up in a situation where while the subject wasn’t banned he started to actively police it. He also actively avoided meeting up with or hearing about my other close friends, who are pedophiles (and perfectly nice people).

The relationship started as a part time thing, and this told me it couldn’t become a fulltime thing. You can’t cohabit or always be around someone who just doesn’t care to hear or talk about the rest of your life.

I don’t blame him for the lack of curiosity. He never promised me anything like that - and of course there’s a part of me that’s grateful that anyone could love me even knowing the fact of my attractions.

Lots of good times ensued after coming out and I still feel it was better for me to say something. It has persuaded me, though, that for a permanent relationship, it’s a better strategy to find a self-acknowledging pedophile.

Although I am an exclusive, I believe I have the right life experience to be able to answer this question.

While I was in a strong, toxic, self-deprecating, depressive denial about my pedophilia at the mere age of 17, I got myself into a relationship with a friend of mine who developed feelings for me. Selfishly, I stayed for two reasons; I was hoping to change my attractions, and I needed someone to keep me alive.

We were together for a long time, even though I was not sexually or romantically attracted to her at all. While I have come out to other people in my life, I could not ever imagine coming out to her. Not while we were in the relationship, and not now, while we’re co-parenting a child. I do not think she would take it well. It does take a lot of a person, in terms of being able to listen, reflect, and understand without judgement, to be able to deal with someone, or more specifically, their ex-partner and father-of-child coming out as a pedophile. I think I would explain how non-offending I am ’til my lips turned blue and she still would not be able to deal with the fact. It’s the sad truth.